Mission Mars (14 page)

“You know my mantra. Survival is simple. Air, water, and food—enough to support our population, then recycle the waste and dispose of the rest. So far, so good.” I return the mock serious tone, still proud of my quote.

“So?” Again, the smooth, inviting voice. I offer a fairly non-descript list of symptoms. Astrid purses her lips and flares her nostrils, as if smelling something not quite right.

“If I didn't know you better, I'd say you were pregnant.” Astrid cracks another joke.

We both chuckle. During the selection process, both Astrid and I were vocal advocates for the inclusion of women on the Mars Bound colonisation program. Despite being well into the second millennium, there were researchers who argued that the presence of women would be a sexual distraction to the men in the colony. Astrid pointed out that no one questioned what would distract the women. Rational minds prevailed, and women continued to be included in the selection process. It angered me, but I did use the organisers' fears about sex to my advantage. I argued that the best candidates for the trip would be those attracted to the same sex, making pregnancies a non-issue, and (hopefully) offering myself another advantage. No public statement was ever released on the topic. As it turns out, though, the average number of Mars inhabitants who prefer non-procreative sex, is greater. Besides, even if Astrid didn't remember my advocacy during the selection process, our arrangement is a regular reminder.

The rules about sex in space are ambiguous. The code of conduct insists that astronauts will not participate in any
behaviour that “threatens the harmony of the team.” This could apply to stealing food, or hogging exercise equipment. In theory, the rule could also apply to sex. The lack of specific language allows for some interpretation. Astrid and I had been interpreting and reinterpreting these codes since she arrived on the planet in the second fleet, a few weeks after me.

“Let's look at you.”

Astrid leans over to reach a container of tongue depressors. Her breast skims the tip of my breast, sensitive and tender. Heat radiates over my chest and cheeks. Her hair falls to one side, the scent of her, rising from her neck. Almost everything smells the same on Mars: dry and stunted, puffs of dust. Everything except Astrid, who smells wet and sweet, like liquorice tea. Before I can press my lips to her flesh, she grabs my chin, tilts my head, forces my mouth open, then checks my tonsils and the glands in my neck.

“Hmmm,” she tuts.

She types the results of her prodding into a computer and waits for the array of possible diagnoses. After a pause to read the results, she enters more data, tuts again, then leans back in her chair. The colour of her eyes shifts from silver to grey. She rubs the side of her head.

“Just tell me!” My words bounce along the metal pod.

“It's not that easy.” Astrid has a way of making bad news sound like melted ice cream—disappointing, worth a tear or two, but still ice cream.

“I can take it,” I assert. The way she squeezes her eyelids together, I wonder if she is considering other options before speaking. But what other options exist?

“It could be a few things. Let's rule out the serious
problems first.” Again, her voice, silky mango sorbet.

Thinking back to the Mars Bound selection process we all were subjected to, and betraying my true worry, I blurt out “Will I be the first injection?”

The selection process involved extensive moral evaluations, including discussions, debates, and our ability to function with others, despite differences in values and beliefs. After final cuts, the chosen spent at least a week drafting end-of-life documents. This was, after all, a one-way mission to Mars. No visits home. No returns. Death, like on earth, was a matter of when, not if. Here, however, each would-be inhabitant signed a pact. One that included the protocol for medically assisted death. One that included the clause, “when an inhabitant induces a significant drain on the colony, becoming a liability rather than an asset, he or she will be euthanized.”

“The computer is coming up with some potentially serious things, but that doesn't mean anything … yet,” Astrid offers sympathetically.

Now, even more nauseated, I excuse myself to the toilet. When I return, Astrid, unlike me, appears more composed, though the beads of sweat stringing together along her hairline betray her otherwise calm demeanour.

“A few more questions, OK?”

I nod and manage to peel my tongue off the roof of my mouth to articulate, “OK.”

“Have you lost or gained any weight?”

The button on my khakis presses into the swell of my belly. “Actually, my clothes are tighter, but I figured it was the lack of rigorous exercise options available to us here … I competed in ultra-triathlons before … but you know all that.”

“Any rashes? Boils? Bumps?”

“No, no, and no.” Astrid adds this to her notes.

“Date of last menstruation?”

“I am not really sure,” I offer, scanning memories of periods past, trying to locate the last one.

“An approximate date? Since we landed? Is your cycle normal? Was it normal on Earth?”

I tread through her questions like swimming in roiling water, fighting to breath, combatting the waves of panic, and battling to keep my head above the surface. “I don't know. No, not since we landed, and no, not normal, I mean, not really. Between the exhaustive training for the ultra-triathlons—and my age—my doctor and I assumed I was going through early menopause, or had suppressed periods from exercise.”

“Plus,” Astrid explained while typing, “it is a normal side effect with the birth control we are all on.”

“Wait. No. Actually, I was exempt. Since I wasn't having regular periods. Or sex with men. My doctor said the last thing my body needed was artificial hormones.”

“Wow. I'm surprised that made it past the medical clearance,” Astrid's eyes darken again as she leans toward me and murmurs, “No drug or alcohol use over the last six months? Not unless you are dipping into my stash.” She winks. My heart jumps.

I smile, pink-cheeked and search my memory. Apart from years ago eating some marijuana-laced brownies—which made me feel like I was rocketing through space toward the stars—I have never done drugs. Wait. There was one time….

Four months into our journey was long enough to know one another's quirks. Long enough to no longer intrigue,
or be intrigued. Long enough to irritate each other, or be irritated. More so now, we were bored. That, combined with the monotony of a highly regimented and unchanging daily routine, brought Guy and me to the rocket's storeroom, searching for fun.

Guy is a dentist, or when he left Earth, an almost-dentist. We became friends early in the selection process and were excited to be on the same transfer ship to Mars. He is funny, athletic, an open-water swimmer, and a drag queen. One other thing, Guy had to offer—code access to the storeroom that housed nitrous oxide….

“Ah, Nat … Nat?” Astrid touches my leg and brings me back. “Anything to eat or drink today?”

“Wait, that other question.”

“Which one? Drugs? Alcohol?” Her forehead furrows. “If you have a secret stash, you had better let me in on it.”

“No, no.” I hesitate. Knowing everything will be recorded and sent back to Earth, I am careful with my choice of words. “On the rocket … on the way here. Nitrous oxide.” I shake my head. “I don't know how much. Just one night. One crazy night on the rocket.”

Astrid doesn't push for details, or how I came to access the gas. Instead, she says, “One recreational use of a dissociative anaesthetic. Noted.”

Dissociative anaesthetic. Dissociate. Disconnect. Separate.

I squint, then close my eyes. My head pulses as if my heart is above my eyebrows. Light streaks past the back of my eyelids. And there, replaying. A time-lapse recap. That night … on the rocket. That night. When time sped up and stood still. The night laughter echoed and bounced off the stars. Fear trembles
in my fingers and turns my stomach. What were we thinking?

I open my eyes and Astrid is staring at me, questions furrowed on her brow, but then she just says, “OK, back to food and drink today? No surprises here, I hope.” This time, she looks at me sideways, the concern gone.

Earlier this morning, Astrid sat across from me in the cafeteria eating what everyone ate. Nutrient rich soy porridge that tastes just as bland here as on Earth. Little flavour. Less scent. Both minimised in the Martian atmosphere. Still, remembering the pungent aroma of coffee, brings on a resurgence of bile. I swallow it.

“Same as you.” I answer.

“Last sexual intercourse. I'm sorry. I hate how hetero-normative these questions are. They imply sex can only happen with men, and only in one way. Remind me to complain about it at the next conference with Earth.” Then, with a wink and shrug, she whispers, “On the other hand, I guess I don't have to include what we got up to this morning.” My nerves pulse with excitement—and fear.

Intercourse. Exchange. Sex.

Nausea rolls in, a thick fog smearing first my sight, then my hearing. Sex. Men. This … they … were not necessary, nor intertwined in my world. Unlike some of my lesbian friends, who tried it on with a guy, I never had. My life was—is—complete. So, why would I? Except that I did … on a rocket. Guy.

“Nitrous oxide has no colour,” Guy had said after cracking into the supply cupboard. “Slightly sweet smell and taste. Though who knows what it will be like up here.”

I inhaled from my belly, pulling a breath. I struggled to hold the gas deep in my lungs, as I imagined it to be …
what? A subtle, almost buttery flavour? The word ‘buttery' made me laugh. I giggled until I hiccupped. I inhaled again. Everything was funny—the whiteness of his teeth, the weight of my earlobes, the way he pressed his teeth into my earlobes. The way the tips of my nipples pressed into my shirt. Pressed against him. The tip of him pressed against me. My skin melted into the softness of light and air.

“Have you ever?” he asked slyly.

“Ever what?” I giggled back.

“Tried a guy?”

“Why?”

“Good point,” Guy conceded sucking back another sweet breath of gas, “I have never even seen a girl naked.”

I sucked deeply from the canister. Something about the innocence of his words, the candour. I peeled off my clothes, my eyes never leaving his. I felt like a teenager again. Everything close to the surface, playful, raw, and alive. I tapped into the adventure I wanted from Mars, this opportunity to try something new, something different, and something that we all hoped would bring a better future.

Guy's gaze followed my hands as I removed each piece of clothing. After I was fully naked, he joked, “I feel awkward.” Then he pulled off his clothes. Both of us naked. Another suck at the gas.

“How do you think straight people even do it?” I asked, eyeing up his parts, then my own.

Under an oddly placed window, we fooled around as space flew by. We arranged ourselves, as though Cirque du Soleil's next theme was Naked Space and we were the main act. The combination of the laughing gas and microgravity made for
multiple laugh-worthy attempts at acrobatic coupling. The awkwardness of our inexperience with the opposite sex melted into the sweet buttery gas.

The size of and power of his hand on my back, the thickness of his limbs, so different than a woman's, the sheen of sweat shone over his rough skin. We twisted and turned, oblivious to anything else. We sucked the sweet noxious gas. We sucked each other. We laughed so hard that my ribs hurt for two days. So did the space between my thighs….

“Yoo hoo. Earth to Nat. Ha! Mars to Nat doesn't have quite the same ring.”

Astrid. The medical pod. The present.

“There you are. I'll take a sample of your blood and urine, then run tests. I know it is hard not to imagine the worst, but there is no reason to assume this is anything more than a persistent virus. Come back at the end of the week, O.K.?” Astrid's eyes return to silver as she ties a bungee cord around my arm and waits for an engorged vein to pop to the surface.

As I leave the health centre, I turn again for the toilet. I vomit. My body convulses. There is only emptiness. Still, anxiety and bile line my throat. Blood vessels in my face throb. Between heaves, I wipe the sweat off my forehead with the sleave of my shirt. Survival comes down to simple math, and this equation has too many variables.

The morning after, Guy and I meet at our usual workout spot. He is already warming up on the specially designed rowing machine when I jump on the treadmill.

Enroute to Mars, all would-be inhabitants are required to exercise at least three hours daily. Cardiovascular health is as important in space as it is on Earth. The real impetus behind the exercise is averting bone density issues, osteoporosis being a greater health threat.

I feel some solace in Guy's haggard appearance, which matches how I feel.